Monday, April 21, 2014

Among the things Brad Richards likes about this current Rangers’ team is the playoff experience in the room.

There are still several players left from the team that went to the 2012 Eastern Conference final, Richards included, even if the coaching staff has changed. He said the acquisition of Marty St. Louis, who, like Richards, won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004, only adds to the experience.

“Maybe I used confident and that’s not the exact word I meant but I think that helps your confidence when you’ve been through a lot of these,” said Richards, referencing an earlier interview in which he said the Rangers were a more confident team. “You lose in the conference final but it still helps your experience and confidence level going into next year.

“It’s the same as any team that would be going into the playoffs multiple years,” Richards added. “If you get to a conference final, it shows you a lot about how you have to win and that’s all I was meaning by that.”

Experience aside, Richards also said the Rangers did not make the necessary improvements from their Game 1 4-1 win to their 4-2 loss in Game 2. At the same time, maintaining an even keel, win or lose, is how the Rangers are approaching Game 3.

“It comes down to maybe a little execution, game plan,” Richards said. “Really, they were probably a little more desperate than we were for some reason (in Game 2). They felt like they had to win that game and I’m not saying we didn’t feel like we had to win it but for some reason, after we got up 2-0, we maybe let off a touch and that’s what we’re going to have to realize. We could have lost the game by playing a perfect game, too. It’s not about just that but the intensity level and the level of play has to keep going up and it has to jump up a lot more than it did from Game 1 to Game 2 than it did for us. That’s our main focus, it’s got to be better.”

“Game 1 was pretty good, we battled, we won puck battles and got some of those second and third opportunities,” Brian Boyle added. “Not so much in Game 2 so we need to get back to that.”
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Flyers goalie Steve Mason once again told the media after his team’s practice today in Voorhees that he was still not ready to return to game action from an unspecified upper-body injury that may or may not have been a concussion or may or may not have been whiplash.

So Ray Emery will again get the start for Tuesday night’s Game 3 at the Wells Fargo Center with the Rangers and Flyers tied at one game apiece after the Rangers blew a two-goal lead in Sunday’s 4-2 loss in Game 2.

Coach Alain Vigneault, asked about possible lineup changes for Game 3, “I’m still in the process of deciding that…If I feel that there’s something that’s better for the team.”

As for left wing Chris Kreider, still out indefinitely after surgery on his left hand, Vigneault would only say “He’s improving.”

Vigneault also - again - declined to give his opinion on the embellishment calls against Mats Zuccarello and Derek Dorsett in Game 2.

“Did you see the replays,” Vigneault said. “So, I’ll let you make the judgement on if Zuccarello’s was an embellishment. It doesn’t matter what I think. I’ll let you make the judgement and make the call on that. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

Zuccarello certainly did not believe he dove and seemed to resent the implication.

“I don’t know, I think I didn’t agree with that call but, at the same time, it’s fast hockey out there and ref makes mistakes like we do,” Zuccarello said. “There’s nothing to think about right now. But I think everybody who watches me play knows I’m not a diver so I think you get pretty irritated right there when you think it’s a bad call. But, right now I don’t think about it. It’s a new game coming up here tomorrow. That’s all I have in my mind.”
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About

ANDREW GROSS covers the New York Rangers for The Record and Herald News, having joined the North Jersey Media Group in November 2007. Gross also covered the Rangers and New York Jets, as well as St. John’s basketball and Army football, for Gannett Newspapers and The Journal News (N.Y.). He graduated from Syracuse University in 1989 with a degree in newspaper journalism.